Chapter 7 - The Crumbling Dynasty
The silence in the boardroom was suffocating.
Tyler reached out with shaking fingers, pulling the top page toward him. His eyes scanned the document, widening with every passing second until his mouth fell open.
"Mom..." Tyler whispered, his voice cracking. "Look at this."
Denise snatched the paper from his hands, her eyes darting across the text with frantic, desperate speed. Her knuckles turned stark white against the paper.
"No," Denise hissed, her voice trembling with sudden fury. "This is a forgery! You paid someone off! Tyler, don't believe this garbage! She had men crawling all over her life while you were working late!"
"Denise," Jenna interjected, her tone dropping into icy authority. "That document contains a direct QR code linking to the state-certified laboratory registry. In five minutes, anyone in this room can verify that Tyler Mercer is the biological father with a 99.999% statistical certainty. If you call this legal document a forgery one more time in front of these witnesses, I will add criminal slander to our civil complaint."
One of Tyler’s senior investment partners, an older man named Arthur Caldwell, cleared his throat, pushed his chair back, and stood up. He picked up one of the extra copies, glanced at the official seals, and looked at Denise with disgust.
"Denise," Caldwell said coldly, "you dragged our firm's name into this mess on social media, claiming you were protecting your son from a scam artist. You assured us this girl was an extortionist."
"She is!" Denise shrieked, losing every shred of her polished composure. "She’s doing this to take our money! Tyler, tell them!"
Tyler stood up, knocking his chair backward. He stared at his mother as if seeing her for the very first time.
"You told me you saw her at the hotel," Tyler stammered, his face red with a mix of shame and rage. "You swore to me on Dad’s memory that you hired a private investigator who photographed her with an ex-boyfriend! You made me look like a monster to my own daughter!"
The room erupted into gasps.
"Wait," I spoke up, stepping closer to the table, my hand resting protectively over my stomach. "You invented a private investigator, Denise?"
May you like
Denise backed away from the table, her chest heaving, her eyes darting toward the exits as her carefully constructed empire of lies collapsed around her ears.
***
